Our early ancestors had a largely mobile lifestyle and used building techniques that leave little evidence for archaeologists to rediscover. This has meant that often the only evidence of their existence are the stone tools they used.

MESOLITHIC - MIDDLE STONE - AGE
The first evidence of human activity in the Milton Keynes landscape is from the middle stone age. The area of Bancroft Villa & Blue Bridge Mausoleum Site was used to manufacture and use tools in a variety of activities. Flint tranchet axes were used for felling trees and woodworking and an assortment of flint microliths representing Mesolithic man's tool kit could have been used for hunting, fishing, butchery, clothes production and the manufacturing of new tools.

NEOLITHIC - NEW STONE - AGE, 4000 BCStone tools found on the Bancroft Mausoleum site are evidence of short periods of activity during the Neolithic. Amongst the tools found was a traverse (chisel) shaped arrow head used for hunting birds, and two ground stone axes .

Stacey Farm's Neolithic Settlement
The original site of Stacey Farm, the later farm is now Milton Keynes Museum, was also an ideal landscape for farming around 2130-1530 BC. A Neolithic farmstead dominated the land occupying an area that was previously woodland, cleared possibly by axes such as those found at Bancroft.